Air Liquide plans to relocate its American corporate headquarters from the Galleria area to the Air Liquide Center, a 20-story, Class A property scheduled to break ground this month in Memorial City.

A world leader in gases, technologies and services for industry and health, Air Liquide is present in 80 countries with close to 50,000 employees and serves more than 2 million customers and patients. The move will provide Air Liquide with expanded space and a premier work environment to accommodate the company’s anticipated growth.

To be located at 9811 and 9807 Katy Freeway, the Air Liquide Center business park will include a 20-story, 452,000-square-foot structure and an adjacent 145,000-square-foot building. Both are LEED Silver pre-certified and will connect to a network of skywalks providing access to Memorial City Mall.

The project is expected to break ground in January 2014, with a completion date set for November 2015.

Air Liquide’s administrative and industrial operations will initially occupy the upper six floors of the 20-story tower, in addition to the first-floor lobby and office space, totaling 155,000 square feet, with options to expand floor space. Its Engineering & Construction operations will occupy two floors of the second building, totaling 67,000 square feet. Morris Architects is the architect of record for the tower. Gensler serves as the architect for the second building and will design Air Liquide’s interiors in both buildings, according to a statement for the press.

Memorial City is a 265-acre mixed-use development in West Houston owned and managed by MetroNational. It runs along the Interstate 10 corridor, just inside Beltway 8, and contains approximately 7.6 million square feet of developed real estate, including the 1.7 million-square-foot Memorial City Mall; garden and high-rise residential living; Class A office space; upscale hotel accommodations such as The Westin Memorial City; and the Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center, the second-largest medical campus in the Houston metropolitan area.

“With the announcement of Air Liquide, four major publicly traded companies have made the decision to relocate to Memorial City in the last 24 months, filling 750,000 total square feet of office space,” said Randy Nerren, executive vice president at MetroNational. “We are delighted that Air Liquide has joined the growing roster of international companies that realize all that Memorial City has to offer.”

Rendering of the Air Liquide Center courtesy of Air Liquide via Business Wire